Our Melbourne bookkeepers share common challenges growing businesses face

August 20, 2018

So your business is on the up and up – congratulations!

As your business expands, it’s inevitable that you’ll run into at least some growing pains as part of the process.

Case in point: your business bookkeeping.

If you’ve been doing all your own bookkeeping up until this point, it may be time to consider your bookkeeping options. This will help keep your accounts clean and well-maintained as you transition from small business to a bigger one.

Does this sound like you? Here are some of the potential challenges your businesses may have to overcome.

Small business bookkeepers

Mismanaged cash flow

Proper cash flow management is key to running any business, whether it’s a small or big business. When cash flow management is mishandled – or worse, wrong – business will suffer.

Sure, you might be making record sales. But it none of that is in cash, how can you pay your staff or keep the lights on?

To do this, you need accurate information and records. Without a proper bookkeeping system in place, it’s easy to lose receipts, enter the wrong data or worse.

And when you’re a big business with hundreds of transactions each day, the potential for mistakes goes through the roof.

Does your budget have a rainy day fund?

As business grows, so too does the importance of proper budgeting.

Every business owner knows the importance of budgeting in keeping expenses under control. However, there’s one part of the budget that many forget: the rainy day fund.

Unplanned expenses come in many forms:

  • Disasters like fire and flooding
  • Urgent equipment purchases
  • Utility issues and unexpected breakdowns
  • Unexpected, rapid expansion
  • As your business grows, so too does the amount of money set aside for emergencies.

Your emergencies scale up too – you’ll to allocate a larger part of your budget for just this situation.

Disorganised payroll management

Your staff can be one of your most important assets – there’s a reason the HR sector is forecasted to see record growth!

We’re bookkeepers, not HR professionals. We can’t advise you on what you can do to make your staff happier.

What we can say is that not paying them on time is a huge point of contention!

Big businesses need to carefully monitor their payroll. With more staff on your payroll, it’s easier for some to slip through the cracks.

Payroll grievances are the last thing your business needs – talk about a waste of time and energy! Compared to smaller operations, bigger businesses need a payroll process that is timely, efficient and accurate at all times.

If you need a payroll upgrade, talk to Maximum Business Solutions about our payroll solutions.

Not taking your reporting to the next level

We’ve talked several times about why regular financial reporting is essential for good business decisions.

What we haven’t covered however is the importance of upping the frequency of your reporting.

For a smaller business, this isn’t an issue, as you can keep track of changes yourself. However, a bigger business means more transactions and more frequent changes to your financial position.

That makes it a lot harder to track every change on your own – something is bound to pass under your radar.

Avoid this by asking your bookkeeper to up the frequency of reports. Not only does this keep you up-to-date, but it also ensures you don’t miss a single thing.

Bookeeper in Melbourne

Late adoption of technology

A lot of these problems can be resolved thanks to the power of modern technology.

Cloud bookkeeping software like Xero and MYOB Essentials ensure:

  • Accuracy
  • Timeliness
  • Comprehensiveness

All of this with a fraction of the effort that pen-and-paper bookkeeping involves.

If you’re growing into a bigger business, updating your accounting software should be one of the first things you look at.

Your current bookkeeping system might have served you well when you only had a dozen staff. As your business grows however, so too does the amount of details you’ll need to plug into your bookkeeping system.

And that can often lead to things being missed, slipping through the cracks or backing up.

Cloud bookkeeping software eliminates this risk entirely by taking everything off your hands: data entry is immediate and invoices generated automatically.

It syncs with all of your accounts:

  • Your bank accounts
  • Your production system
  • Your payroll system
  • Your tax account
  • Your CRM

Best of all, your bookkeeper and team can access this centralised wherever you go – as long as there’s an internet connection, you have access.

Thinking of joining the cloud revolution? Get in touch with an official Xero and MYOB bookkeeping partner!

How bookkeeping services in Melbourne help you conquer any bookkeeping challenges!

Contact Maximum Business Solutions

Without a doubt, one of the biggest mistakes any business makes as it grows into a bigger business is continuing to do their own bookkeeping.

Not bringing on a dedicated bookkeeper can have disastrous consequences for your business. Your workload grows with your business – you won’t have the time to continue tracking your own records.

That’s where we come in.

Maximum Business Solutions specialises in providing comprehensive bookkeeping services for businesses of all sizes:

  • Payroll
  • Invoicing
  • BAS lodgements
  • Account cleanups
  • Debt collection
  • Cloud setup and training

Are you a growing business? Contact Maximum Business Solutions now at (03) 9589 0128 or click here to arrange a conversation about your big business today.